Langland Road, Netherfield, Milton Keynes, MK6 4HA

01908 670 712

Langland Community School

Be Our Best to Achieve Our Best!

 

Year 6

Take a look at what Year 6 has been doing so far this term. 

Oak's PE day is a Friday.

 

Year 6 Soundscape: Exploring Recording Our Voices


Welcome to our class blog. This week, we dived into the fascinating world of sound recording and podcasting using a popular audio software, Audacity.


The world of audio recording is rich and exciting, full of opportunity to be creative, to explore, and to share. With Audacity, we've started a thrilling journey to learn how to express ourselves, craft stories, share ideas, and even have friendly debates all while sharpening our ICT skills.


We started our adventure by introducing Audacity. It's a free and open-source digital audio editor, perfect for our first steps into the world of sound manipulation and creation. We took some time to understand the basic layout, features, and how to record our voices. We looked at concepts like waveforms and tracks. We then looked how we can use loops and samples of waveforms to create remixes of songs.


 


We then recorded our voices using the built-in microphones on our computers. It was so exciting to hear our voices played back! We discussed the importance of clear articulation, pacing, and expression when recording.


Once we had our recordings in place, we looked at audio editing. We explored how to cut, copy, paste, and delete sections of our audio. We still have so many features to discover, such as how to adjust the volume of their audio clips and add simple effects like fading in and out. But before we even think about that, we had to plan what it was we wanted to talk about, rather than just ramble on.


Plans are now in place to discuss the following: football, days out to Warner Bros., quizzes, film reviews, more football, and number of other interesting things.  We're now in the process of rehearsing our scripts, ready to record next week.


 


Using Audacity and creating a podcast will not only help us develop our ICT skills, but it will also provide us with a wonderful platform for self-expression, teamwork, and creativity. We can't wait to see what the rest of the term brings. Be sure to stay tuned to listen to our first-ever podcast episode!


Until next time,


Year 6 Classes & Teachers

Exceptional Approaches to Ratio and Scaling Problems


In today's blog, we want to highlight the remarkable attitudes of our students when it comes to solving ratio and scaling problems. These mathematical concepts require students to understand the relationship between quantities and how they change in proportion to each other. Our students have shown exceptional problem-solving skills and a positive mindset when tackling these challenging tasks.


Ratio and scaling problems involve comparing and adjusting quantities to maintain a proportional relationship. Students need to analyze the given information, set up ratios, and scale values accordingly. It requires critical thinking, logical reasoning, and a solid grasp of mathematical concepts.


Our students demonstrate an amazing ability to break down complex ratio and scaling problems into simpler steps. They approach these problems systematically and methodically, focusing on each stage of the problem-solving process. By breaking down the problems, they can better understand and tackle each component, leading to successful solutions.


Collaboration is another outstanding aspect of our students' approach to ratio and scaling problems. They actively engage in group discussions, exchanging ideas and providing valuable feedback. By working together, they gain diverse perspectives and find innovative strategies to solve these mathematical challenges. Collaboration enhances their problem-solving skills and strengthens their understanding of ratios and scaling.


Furthermore, our students exhibit great resilience and persistence when faced with difficult ratio and scaling problems. They understand that not all problems have immediate solutions and are willing to invest time and effort to find the right answers. Through perseverance, they develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts and improve their problem-solving abilities.


In conclusion, the exceptional attitudes of our students towards ratio and scaling problems are truly commendable. Their ability to break down complex problems, collaborate effectively, and persist in the face of challenges sets them on the path to mathematical success. We are proud of their achievements and excited to witness their continued growth in mathematics and beyond.



Outstanding Oak Triumphs Over Super Sycamore in Rounders


In our recent PE lesson, the match between Outstanding Oak and Super Sycamore in rounders was nothing short of exciting. The Outstanding Oak team truly lived up to their name, showcasing their exceptional skills and defeating Super Sycamore in a thrilling game.


The match was a display of teamwork, strategy, and outstanding athletic ability. Both teams gave their best efforts, but Outstanding Oak's players demonstrated exceptional coordination, communication, and precision in their gameplay. Their determination and unwavering focus led them to victory.


Super Sycamore put up a valiant effort, displaying great sportsmanship and skill throughout the game. Although they didn't come out on top, their resilience and teamwork were admirable. The match served as a valuable learning experience for all players, highlighting the importance of perseverance, cooperation, and a positive attitude in sports.


Congratulations to Outstanding Oak for their impressive performance in rounders. We applaud both teams for their sportsmanship and commitment to the game. The match showcased the talent and dedication of our students, and we look forward to more exciting sporting events in the future.

We are thrilled to present this special blog post dedicated to celebrating the outstanding efforts of our amazing Year 6 pupils in their SATs tests. It is with great pride that we commend their hard work, determination, and perseverance throughout this important journey. Let's take a moment to acknowledge their accomplishments and appreciate their dedication.


Our Year 6 pupils have truly shown their commitment to learning and their unwavering focus. We also appreciate the unwavering support and encouragement from parents and guardians. Your involvement in their learning journey has been instrumental in their outcomes. Together, as a team, we have empowered our students to reach new heights.



Preparing for SATs tests can be demanding, but our Year 6 pupils faced the challenges with a positive attitude and resilience. They exhibited courage and determination in tackling difficult concepts, and their efforts will undoubtedly pay off.


We have no doubt that their achievements will continue to flourish as they embark on the next chapter of their educational journey. With their dedication and determination, the possibilities are limitless.



The Adventures of Our Pupils in the World of Electronics


Our pupils have been delving into the fascinating world of electronic circuits! These bright young minds are learning the foundations of electronics and exploring the endless possibilities that technology has to offer.


Getting Started with Electronics


This week the children have embarked on their first adventure into the world of electronic circuits. We began with a brief introduction to basic circuit components, circuit diagrams, and discussed the importance of experimenting with simple circuits.  The students' eyes lit up (as did the bulbs we were using!) as they started to understand the magic behind these tiny components and how they work together to create a functioning circuit.


Once we had discussed safety, it was all hands on deck, as they built circuits that included: bulbs, switches, buzzers, bells and motors. It was wonderful to see their excitement and sense of accomplishment when they successfully completed their circuits, and it was evident that they were ready for more complex projects.


Watch this space over the next few weeks, as they experiment more and discover what is possible to build with a simple circuits.

After a week off, Year 6 pupils have committed themselves to SATs revision yet again.  They seem to be doing everything they can to explore and understand both Maths  and English.


 


We are ever so proud of their attitudes and efforts. Keep up the good work.

Up Periscope!



This week we have been discovering how to produce periscopes from shoeboxes and mirrors. 


The word periscope is formed from two Greek words: ‘peri’ which means ‘around’ and ‘scopus’ which means ‘to look.’


Did you know that the first periscope was invented almost 600 years ago? Neither did we.


This was such an interesting topic, which related to our Science topic,  'Light'.  We are hoping that this amazing subject will tempt some of the children into becoming scientist or inventors. 


LCS Burgers


We have also had many wonderful smells emitting from the DT room over the past week – homemade burgers anyone?  Although we haven’t come up with the perfect recipe yet, we are certainly working on it.  Over the next few weeks, we will be creating our very own burgers, sauces and bun combo – watch this space!

As a school, we have all been celebrating World Book Day.  This has given us all the opportunity to talk about our likes and dislikes, compare our favourite authors, and dress up as characters from books we have read. Some of the children visited Tesco to swap their World Book Day vouchers for books, such as; The Strangeworlds Travel Agency: Adventure in the Floating Mountains by L.D. Lapinski; The Boy with Wings: Attack of the Rampaging Robot by Lenny Henry; and many others.


We also analysed the Lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s song Both Sides Now. We looked at it from a poetic point of view and studied the meaning of each verse and chorus – it was amazing to see what insight the children had, and we discussed the contrast in how the writer remembers her playful, imaginative childhood and how she sees it now as an adult. 


We can’t wait to hear what the children will be adding to their booklist over the upcoming weeks.


Please remember that the children can always ask for reading suggestions from any of the adults, as we all love a good book.



This week, the children have been reading and creating their own poetry.  They started the week by reading a poem with the theme… Spies. After analysing the features of the poem, and critiquing what they had read, they created their own poems; we definitely have some poets in the making. 


They also tried their hand at Book Spine Poetry. Book spine poetry is a type of ‘found’ poetry, made up of words from other sources – in this instance the titles found on the spine of a book.

They had to sort through a number of books, arranging the titles so that they flowed and suited the theme of spies. What they came up with was amazing.  The children were able to discuss why they chose certain titles and why they were more suitable than other titles.


This week in our Talk for Reading lessons, the children have started to read Holes by Louis Sachar.  Everyone is enjoying this amazing book! So far, we have found out:



  • Stanley Yelnats comes from a long line of Stanley Yelnats’.

  • His great-great-grandfather had a curse placed upon him, which has followed the family down the generations.

  • Whatever crime he has been accused of committing; he did not do it.

  • Camp Green Lake is not green, nor is there a lake


We are dying to find out what happens next!



In Art, we have continued to study, design and create our own pieces of clay sculptures based on the artwork of the people of Benin.  The quality of work has been outstanding, as I hope you will agree.  Well to Einar and Hayden for these amazing sculptures.



This week in Science, Year 6 has been learning about classification. Classification is sorting things into sets or classes which have features in common.  We started by taking a deck of playing cards and sorting them into as many different groups as possible.


This was a fascinating lesson, in which some children learned new facts about playing cards.  Not only did we classify but we used our division and multiplication skills to help us calculate the numbers in each set. 


We sorted the cards into; suits, numbers, colours, odd/even, and picture cards… both classes got quite creative with their findings.


We then discovered that If something displays all seven of these life processes it is classed as a living thing:


Movement


Reproduction


Sensitivity


Nutrition


Excretion


Respiration


Growth


This is proving to be an interesting topic for both children and adults.


This term, Year 6 will be creating sculptures inspired by African Culture.  The two classes started at different points: Outstanding Oak made a start by reminding themselves how to manipulate clay by making ‘pinch pots’. Super Sycamore started by studying African sculptures, both intricate and plain designs, and thought about how we could reproduce these with clay. They then sketched their own designs based on what they had studied.  We can’t wait to see how their sculptures will turn out over the next five weeks.

The whole school had the good fortune of visiting the Odeon cinema this week to see Arthur Christmas.  The film was wonderful as was the behaviour of the children.


As the other year groups made their way back to school, Year 6 visited the Knife Angel, which is situated outside the Stadium MK.  The Angel sculpture is made up of 100,000 knives created by artist Alfie Bradley.  It is on tour to visually highlight the shocking impact of knife crime within the area.  Police officers from Thames Valley Police gave the children facts about the sculpture and the importance of anti-violence within Milton Keynes.  The children were then given cards to write messages to victims’ families or their thoughts on knife crime, which have been collected and will be part of a sculpture that will go on permanent display in Milton Keynes in the future.


 


Both Year 6 classes took part in Christmas Cracked; a fast-moving, interactive presentation that told us the story of the birth of Jesus and what Christmas means to Christians. We took part in various activities that included: games, quizzes, written work, and multimedia presentations – all designed to entertain and educate us.  The children took part with great enthusiasm and learnt another aspect of religious celebrations to add to their ever-growing understanding of different belief systems.

In Talk for Reading this week we have been reading the poem His Nine Sympathies by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.


His Nine Sympathies by Carol Ann Duffy


were for the mothers,
listening to flute scales stop and start;

and for the fathers,
whistling their tired ways home in the dark;


for younger brothers,
sent with the jingling cows to market;


or for eldest daughters,
hymned up the aisles till death did them part;


for orphans,
led by a piper out of a pretty park;


and for paupers,
scraping their fiddles for small change in a hat;


for old ones,
tapping their sticks on the twisting path;


for soldiers,
stamping their boots on a victory march;


and for the lovers,
the broken chords of their hearts.


We thought about what we liked about the poem, the questions it raised and the images it put into our heads. Have a read above and think about what you like and if you have any questions about it.


We read through the poem slowly, unpicking and exploring the meaning and then carried out some drama - Freeze Frames and Thought Tracking. Can you see which freeze frame photographs below link to a particular line of the poem?


                


We then put ourselves into one of the person’s shoes in the poem and wrote from a viewpoint. Have a read of the diary entry below – can you see which character from the poem is writing.


Dear Diary,


Today was a day like any other tiring day. I took the children to the beautiful park, allowed them to play for a short time, and then lined them up to go back to the orphanage. My cruel face and curled finger led them back to their cold home. The small flame in my heart did feel some regret and I hoped for someone to shine a great, restoring light on the lives of these children.


Jasper Piper


 


Finally, we created our own poem, where instead of sympathy, our scenarios evoked another abstract noun e.g. envy. We then wrote in the style of Carol Anne Duffy’s original poem. We were all really impressed with Toby's poem - His Nine Determinations.


His Nine Determinations
by Toby


 Were for the creators,
who try their hardest to bring together a new generation of players;


And for the mothers,
who take their time to teach their ways;


For the pupils,
working for a new ambitions;


Or for the teachers,
who help prepare for the gruelling next stage;


For the builders,
who work tirelessly to make new projects;


And for the police officers,
who persevere to make justice in the cities and towns;


 For youtubers,
 who take pains to make quality content on their growing channel;


For soldiers,
who sacrifice their souls to save the country;


And finally for the engineers,
who require immense materials to make revolutionary inventions.


 

This week, Year 6 have been working hard on their mock SATs.  The setup was exactly the same as the real thing, so we all felt the pressure (teachers included!)


The children did extremely well and, as always, we are extremely proud of the efforts that they put in.



Let's see how well you would do at this selection of questions that Year 6 pupils had to answer...

An action-packed week full of learning and progress in Year 6 again this week.


The children have worked extremely hard to complete their Innovations in Talk for Writing. They have all written an explanation text based on a mythical creature. Have a look below at some of them. Can you see examples of what is on our toolkit and how the children have used it in their own writing?


We started a new unit of work this week in maths… fractions. Mrs Eames, Mr Carter and Miss Richardson, were extremely impressed with the children’s understanding of new concepts and how children were using their prior knowledge to support their new learning. You can see in our learning below, that we have been finding the highest common factor to simplify fractions and the lowest common multiples to convert and compare them – we really had to use our knowledge of our multiplication facts to help us!


In Talk for Reading, we used a drama technique called ‘conscience alley’ to explore Bonnie – a character from Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Most children decided that she should escape from the orphanage and take Sylvia with her! We will find out next week what happens in the story…


Drama continued in science where we were birds and experimenting with different beak shapes. This linked to our learning about adaptations and the work of Charles Darwin who studied finches on the Galapagos Islands. We discovered that finch’s beak shape had evolved depending on food sources – we experimented with different shaped tweezers and chopsticks to see which shaped beak was suited to various foods e.g., seeds, small insects, eggs etc.


We have had an extremely busy week in Year 6.

On Friday 11th November, 18 pupils from Outstanding Oak and Super Sycamore represented Langland Community School at the Remembrance Day Service at Christ the Vine in Coffee Hall.  It was a long morning when the children were standing waiting for the service to begin alongside several other schools.  We were led down to the war memorial at the church by members of the Royal British Legion, marching in line and in silence.


As the ceremony took place, our pupils made their school and families proud, as they stood in complete silence for 4 minutes; 2 minutes for Queen Elizabeth II and then another 2 minutes for all of those that gave their lives in war.  Whilst we looked on, doves were released during the silence as a symbol of peace; it was such a poignant moment.


The children were then rewarded with a cupcake, topped with an iced poppy symbol, and a cup of juice.  This set us off nicely for our walk back to school. 


I want to thank the children involved, as they showed outstanding attitudes and behaviour.  As always, they were Ready, Respectful & Safe.


Year 6 have had a super busy four days back this term.


We have started our new Talk for Writing Unit where we will be writing an explanation text about some of the mythical creatures, we have learnt about from the Spiderwick Chronicles.


To develop our vocabulary this week, we have been reading and writing poem about ogres using our senses. We particularly enjoyed a poem by Walter De La Mare, which was full of archaic vocabulary. You can read some of our poems below - can you spot some of the exciting vocabulary we have magpied this week?


In maths we reviewed our written methods of multiplication and division. We have built on this and learnt long division (3-digit number by a 2-digit number). Have a look at our learning below... Can you see how we followed the steps accurately?


These were the steps we followed:


Step 1: Write the multiples for the divisor up to 10x


Step 2: What is the largest multiple you can take away?


Step 3: Subtract the multiple from the quotient


Step 4: What is the largest multiple you can take away now?


Step 5: Repeat the subtraction


Step 6: Continue until you can’t subtract anymore, and you will be left with your remainders.


Step 7: How many groups of the divisor have you taken away in total?


Step 8: Rewrite your division sentence including your answer.


We started our new science topic - Evolution and Inheritance. We thought about what characteristics we inherit from our parents and what features are influenced by our environment. 


Year 6 are looking forward to sharing their learning with their families and carers next week. Don't forget to book online :-)  

We have been celebrating one of our favourite times of the year... Harvest Festival.  Although the weather isn't fantastic, our attitudes, singing voices and thoughtfulness always stand out at this time.  We sang the 'Harvest Mamba' and learnt about the amazing work that the Food Bank do in our community.


Both classes created acrostic poems to share with the rest of the school. 

This week in History, Year 6 has continued to look at WWII and the impact that the war had on people at home in Britain.  We discussed rationing and how everyone had to cut down on what they ate so that there was a fair share of the food in the country - even the Royal Family were on rations.


This led us to discuss whether it was something we should consider, as we are currently going through challenging times and shortages of some food items. 


We have replicated some government posters created to make the public aware of the vital part they had to play in the war.

It has been an exciting week of writing in Year 6.  We have been innovating a text together, and the contributions from the pupils have been outstanding.  We have tried acting out scenes, which has helped us to dig deep for words and phrases that create tension. 


Here are some examples of what we have created:


'I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.'


'Without notice, ice-cold bumps expanded across my raising skin.'


'Goosebumps ran up my body as I took a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.'


'The thought of the approaching shadow made me break out in a sweat.'


'A fierce deep voice shouted, rumbling like a tsunami- someone or something was pursuing us.'


'We ducked down and kept as silent as mice.'


As you can see, the children have invested a lot of time and energy in their work, of which they should be proud of.


Year 6 has watched reports about the life of Queen Elizabeth II who sadly passed away on Thursday.  We discussed how the death of someone, whether related to us or not, can cause us to have different emotions.  We talked about how in some cultures it is felt that it is important to mourn someone; in other cultures, that person's life should be celebrated. 


What we agreed on was that we all react differently to loss, and that there is no right or wrong way to respond when something like this happens.


It was so nice to see Year 6 act in such a mature way and to be so respectful of how other people feel. 

As a school, we are looking at ways to improve our handwriting.  The children are learning to hold their pencils correctly, improve their posture, and position their books so that they can develop more legible handwriting.  They have been taking part in a number of exercises to strengthen their core. So if you hear them mention; Strong Penguins, Strong Lions, Strong Lizard, Strong Bear and Strong Lizard; these are the names of the poses and postures they are using to become strong writers.

This week, a mysterious suitcase was discovered in 'The World of Wild'.


We felt a number of different feelings as we approached the hut that contained the case: nervous, frightened, excited, anxious, scared and thrilled.


There were a number of different items found within the case, such as, a candlestick holder, a bottle filled with a mysterious red liquid, a silver tankard containing jewellery, a used quill, a copy of The Times newspaper from 1969, a gold stone, and a wonderful collection of hand drawn pictures of magical creatures and beasts.


We can't wait to see what amazing writing comes from our exciting discovery.

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